Something greater than yourself | Lori de Mori’s pilgrimage

‘I discovered what truly made me happy — and it wasn’t what I thought,’ reflects food writer and Towpath Café co-founder Lori de Mori on her forty-plus days and nights walking the Camino de Santiago. Her journey spanned from Roncesvalles in Navarre to Fisterra, a Galician promontory once believed to be the westernmost point of the earth. De Mori, named by guest curator David Whyte as someone to watch, spoke with Emma Clarkson about how her pilgrimage and how it transformed her.

text EMMA CLARKSON

‘I really got to watch what made me happy, and it wasn’t what I thought’, food writer and co-founder of London’s beloved Towpath Cafe, Lori de Mori recounts of her forty-something days and nights following the Camino de Santiago from Navarre’s Roncesvalles to Fisterra, a Galician promontory once believed to be the earth’s most Western point.

De Mori had been raising her two children amongst the olive groves in Tuscany when in 2007 her son left for university and was swiftly followed by her daughter who had decided to spend a year with her father in the United States. Suddenly, finding herself with an empty house, De Mori was searching for a something to mark the change of seasons.

Earlier that year, De Mori and her old friend David Whyte had convened to organise the first of Whyte’s poetry and walking trips to Italy, an offshoot of the Irish tour in County Clare which had brought the two of them together seven years prior. In a small village, the closest to De Mori’s country home, where she had brought Whyte to familiarise him with the local butchers and the fruttivendolo, she was tapped on the shoulder by none other than Ruth Reichl. The former food critic for the New York and LA times and the then Editor-in-chief of Gourmet asked: ‘Sorry I’m not following you around but I need to ask you, do you cook?’ De Mori had been writing about food for some time and had even crossed paths with Reichl once before but the stars had not yet aligned for her to write for what was then the leading magazine on everything food culture. Reichl would be invited back to the house for supper that evening and De Mori would be commissioned to write a piece on the Camino.

Lori de Mori

Although David Whyte himself has never walked the Spanish pilgrimage he has visited the route many times through his work, dedicating a collection of poems to the pilgrims in his life: De Mori, his god daughter and others he has known who have set out towards a shared destination. ‘He didn’t necessarily need to do the Camino. He is interested in people’s journeys. The act of leaving, of walking out the door, not of doing that journey specifically.’

There is a reverence in her voice as she describes her time walking. One instance involving a phone call to her daughter, conducted on a Nokia brick telephone, brought forth the question: ‘Do I need to walk that far to feel how you sound?’ She did, she admits, develop pneumonia in the final leg of her journey from Santiago de Compostela to Fisterra. Tingling limbs and hearing voices all felt par for the course trekking along a fault line where so many souls had prayed and walked before. Speaking of piercing that veil, De Mori tells me ‘I feel like I had said to the universe, or the spirits, “I’m here!” And then had the immense and tremendous power of whatever that is answer “Yes?”, and realised how huge that was. I just felt floored.’

‘I came back a complete convert to walking. I loved the idea of putting on a pack and having to decide what is so important? That I am willing to carry it with me for eight-hundred kilometres.’ When I ask her whether she brought anything along that might have felt inessential, she tells me that before setting off she transcribed Whyte’s poem Learning to Walk in its entirety and carried it the whole way tucked between notebooks: ‘I meant to bring Don Quixote until I saw how big it was!’ Recounting her pilgrimage, it is apparent that any questions on the importance of generosity, humility, moving to a rhythm of something greater than yourself something greater than yourself and the magic of human connection have their answers lie within everything that the Towpath Cafe is.

Lori de Mori’s Towpath Cafe in London

Nowadays you will find De Mori greeting passers-by from her place behind the counter in one of the three kiosks which form the intimate canal side cafe, which she opened fifteen years ago with chef Laura Jackson. Spilling out onto the Regent’s Canal in De Beauvoir Town with its red chairs and green tables each adorned with a small bouquet of flowers, hand-picked by De Mori, Towpath is a favourite amongst actors, painters, writers, walkers, joggers and Londoners in general. The cafe operates under a strict set of conditions: No laptops, no takeaway and you may have to share a table with a complete stranger. Not unlike the refugios and hostels which adorn the Camino, Towpath offers a pause, warm hospitality and a hearty seasonal meal to passers-by.

I ask De Mori what came of her writing about the Camino and she tells me she initially meant to publish it as a book. After a year of attempting to translate the experience into a compelling sustained narrative, De Mori accepted that it would be impossible to boil something so immense down into words. She has found that some things she prefers to express through action: ‘Things can be hard work and still be enjoyable. Enjoyment doesn’t just come from kicking your feet up and eating grapes.’ If you are ever lucky enough to find yourself at Towpath you will find that enjoyment and hard work marry together to season every mouthful.

Read more about pilgrims in See All This #36
‘To Be a Pilgrim’ guest-curated by David Whyte.
Order a copy here >